Colmar: a final day trip

With our limited time left in Nancy, Kerstin and I had decided long ago that we really needed to do one last day trip out of the city. For a number of months we had wanted to go to Colmar, a town in Alsace not far from Strasbourg that is famous for its picturesque quartiers and traditional Alsacian-Germanic style architecture. So this past Wednesday, we prayed for good weather and hopped on a midday-train bound for Colmar. Two relaxing train-ride hours later, we stepped out into the sunshine and made our way from the station through a beautiful park and gardens and into the old city...which transported you back in time about 300 years. Most of the downtown area is pedestrian only, and with cobbled streets, timbered houses and small passageways, it was the quaintest little towns I had ever seen.

a sample of the architecture found all over the town

We had a great day exploring the whole inner city, and had picked up a tourist brochure that planned out a "route" you could walk to see all the historic parts. We checked out the 13th century church, the largest in the region, the "maison des têtes" (house of heads), decorated with (you guessed it) heads and dating from the 16th C, and many other very old and historic landmarks.

the "Maison des Têtes" (and I managed to catch a random lady's head in the picture)

Eglise Saint-Martin

The best part though was just wandering around the city, admiring the adorable coloured houses, small streets and canals. We passed through "Petite Venise" (little Venice) and the Quartier des Tanneurs (the Tannery district) which were being decorated for Easter, and unfortunately we were a day too early for the annual Easter markets. Oh well.

le quartier des Tanneurs

Petit Venise

After wandering our way around the city and checking out the sites, we had a couple hours left before our train home and decided to take the little "tourist train" of Colmar, which in a short 35 minute tour took us around the old city and past famous monuments and buildings and explained the history of the city. Very fun and relaxing way to round off the day! (As was my florentine, mmmm)

I love Germanic-style baking...

Before we headed back to the train station we popped into an ancient book store in the Maison des Tetes and I bought the cutest little children's storybook of Paris from 1960. A nice little souvenir!

Even though we were only in the town about 5 hours, we saw it in it's entirety and were so glad we had the opportunity to go! We both loved it and it was a perfect little trip to fit into a day...and sadly enough, the last daytrip I'll take from my home base in Nancy, *sniff*! It was also great to have one last full day with my roommate Kerstin, who I'll definitely miss a lot when I leave.

Cheers to an awesome 8 adventuresome months together!